First nationwide vaccination drive of 2026 kicks off against poliovirus

• Over 10m children to be inoculated against poliovirus in Sindh.
• Five-day vaccination drive to target 6.5 million children in KP.
• 11,000 teams to vaccinate 2.6 million children in Balochistan.

KARACHI/LAHORE/QUETTA: A nationwide vaccination campaign has been kicked off today, aiming to inoculate over 45 million children against the crippling poliovirus.

The vaccination campaign will see health workers going door-to-door to children in Sindh, Punjab, Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to vaccinate the children.

Polio, caused by a human enterovirus called the poliovirus, is most often spread by the faecal-oral route. Poliovirus enters through the mouth and multiplies in the intestine, with infected individuals shedding poliovirus into the environment for several weeks, where it can spread rapidly through a community, especially in areas of poor sanitation.

The vaccination comes weeks after the country's poliovirus case tally for 2025 reached 31 after the disease was detected in a four-month-old girl from Union Council Spinwam-2 in North Waziristan.

The provincial tally for 2025 stands at 20 cases reported in KP, nine in Sindh, one in Punjab, and one in Gilgit Baltistan (GB) — a notable decrease from 74 in 2024.

In the vaccination campaign launched today, the health department said that over 80,000 polio workers will administer vaccination drops to more than 10 million children during a seven-day campaign in Sindh from February 2 to February 8.

As for the security arrangements, 7,703 police officers and personnel will be deployed for the polio workers' security, said the Karachi Police spokesperson.

Of the said policemen, 2,724 belong to the East Zone, 2,90toom the West Zone and 2,070 to the South Zone.

Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah kicked off the vaccination drive in the province by administering anti-polio drops to children at a school in Karachi's Chanesar Goth.

Meanwhile, in Lahore, PM's Focal Person on Polio Eradication Ayesha Raza Farooq, while speaking at an event, said that the anti-polio vaccination campaign is one of the priorities of the Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and the government.

With regards to the campaign in Punjab, a four-day drive commenced in Rawalpindi targeting 1.57 million children with 8,000 polio workers taking part in the initiative, said the health department.

A four-day vaccination campaign, as per the deputy commissioner, has also been launched in Lodhran with 1,459 teams deployed on the ground, aiming to vaccinate 385,027 children.

In KP, a five-day inoculation drive has been launched with the aim of targeting 6.5 million children.

As many as 35,000 polio teams and 50,000 police personnel have been deployed, said the health department, adding that the vaccine will be administered to more than 800,000 children in Peshawar only.

In Balochistan, a seven-day poliovirus vaccination campaign has been initiated today, aiming to inoculate more than 2.6 million children via the deployment of 11,000 teams in the province.